About
A small house, quietly founded, in 2025.
Amara Africa was founded in Dubai in 2025 by a small group of people who had spent fifteen years writing safaris for other companies, and who wanted to write them again, differently.
The Story
Written, not assembled.
We spent years inside larger houses. We learned how to write a safari, and we learned — slowly, and with some frustration — what is lost when a file is handed down an assembly line, and what is gained when it is not.
Amara Africa exists to keep a small number of journeys held by a small number of hands. Our Dubai office holds the guest relationship; our Cape Town product team holds the itinerary and the ground operation. Two rooms, one voice, one pace.
We are a house of two cities and two countries. We are from the Gulf and from Southern Africa. Our clients are, quietly, the same.
The Team
Three senior pairs of hands.
Co-Founder · Chief Strategy Officer · George
Stephan Koen
For over two decades Stephan has worked across the globe managing operations for some of the world's largest travel management companies — mastering the systems, strategy, and technology that move people seamlessly around the world. But the operations and the strategy were always in service of something simpler: a lifelong love of Africa, of its wild coast and quiet bushveld, of the feeling of being somewhere truly untamed.
He founded Amara to bring the very best of what Africa has to offer to the discerning travellers of the UAE and Saudi Arabia — to share a continent he has loved his whole life with those who have yet to discover it. For Stephan, Africa's greatest luxury is its wildness intact, and Amara exists to help keep it that way.
Co-Founder · Chief Revenue Officer · Dubai
Lloyd Barkhuizen
Across more than three decades in travel, Lloyd has built a career spanning sales leadership, airline and supplier contracting, and consulting to the industry across South Africa and beyond. He has built travel businesses, negotiated the deals that make extraordinary journeys possible, and earned a name for putting the client at the centre of every conversation.
Now based in Dubai, he is Amara's bridge between the discerning travellers of the Gulf and the Africa he has loved his whole life. For Lloyd, the privilege isn't the deal — it's watching a first-time guest fall for the continent the way he did, and knowing the journey was built to give back as much as it gives.
Global Director of Operations · Cape Town
Cecily Fester
Over two decades in travel operations have made Cecily a master of the art that the best journeys depend on and the guest never sees. Across some of the industry's most respected names she has looked after VIP travel, orchestrated conferences and events, and held a single service standard steady across borders, time zones, and every surprise the road can throw.
Her love of Africa runs through all of it — a belief that the continent rewards those who are fully present in it, and that such presence is only possible when everything behind the scenes has been thought through to the last detail. At Amara she is the calm, exacting hand behind every Amara journey, and the quiet guardian of the wild places at its heart.
Our philosophy
“A journey is not a product. It is a considered arrangement of hours, written for one household, by people who intend to be on the end of the phone while it happens.”
Amara Africa · A Private House · Est. 2025
The Field Journal
A quarterly letter, quietly written.
Four times a year we send a single long letter — a field report, a season's notes, and the occasional early release. No campaigns. No forwarded noise. You may leave at any time.